1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to wheel chairs and in particular to hand levers designed to move and stop a wheel chair by the occupant with ease.
2. Description of Related Art
The presently used device for moving a manually-operated wheel chair by the occupant is a metal one-half inch circular ring projecting out from the wheel. This is a narrow hand gripping device used to propel the wheel chair and is an improvement over gripping a dirty tire to turn the wheels.
The smaller gripping edge used on conventional wheel chairs is hard on hands and provides very week propulsion, with a great deal of effort.
In addition, U.S. Pat. No. 3,189,368 to J. F. Peterson discloses a driver attachment with a pivotally connected handle assembly for a wheel chair. U.S. Pat. No. 3,301,574 to D. T. Good shows a propelling arrangement including a U-shaped main lever to which is connected a driving lever 34 and with a separate brake handle mounted behind the wheel. U.S. Pat. No. 4,538,826 to R. Lemarie discloses a pair of arms rotatably mounted on a wheel chair axle and a handle operated caliper assembly mounted on the arms to engage the wheels, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,735,431 to R. E. Tait discloses a pair of normal horizontally mounted handles which are pivotally mounted for up and down movement to drive a clutch connected to the drive wheels.
The object of my invention is to provide leverage for greater movement, more power and less effort to propel a wheel chair along with the convenience of propelling handles along with a braking device next to the propelling handle, giving the occupant of the wheel chair improved stopping and turning control.